


A Dramatic Necessity

by OrdinaryRealities



Series: O, Tiger's Heart Wrapped in a Woman's Hide [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon-Typical Mental Health Issues, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Friendship, M/M, Phichit Chulanont Is a Good Friend, Suicide reference, Yakov is a good coach (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 21:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryRealities/pseuds/OrdinaryRealities
Summary: Viktor needs a best man. Phichit is going to find him a best friend.Basically, I love Phichit and Viktor being buddies and I love Phichit and Chris being friends, and I feel like, in canon, Chris and Viktor have this weird hyper-competitive friendship that needs some work, and Phichit isn't going to stand for that very long.





	A Dramatic Necessity

**Author's Note:**

> Suicide reference is super brief: Viktor suggests that he would have killed himself at the beginning of canon if nothing had changed. If it's going to trigger you, please don't read it. I like having people read my stories, but not that much. 
> 
> Anyone who has been reading the series knows that I am trying to follow the homophobia-free dictates of YoI canon. I cheated a little bit here. I figure that the way it is done in the actual show is that while society as a political structure has no homophobia, characters show a bias towards heteronormativity. So I try to keep it to that and no more.

It started when the beaming duo turned to Viktor and he shrugged. Yuuri and Phichit had paused in the middle of posting yet another selfie – Phichit mid-hashtag and Yuuri lifting his head from where he’d rested it on the other’s shoulder – for Phichit to begin the wedding planning. Viktor was privately a little impressed; Yuuri wasn’t five minutes off the podium. 

“So, Viktor, who’s your best man?

Viktor blinked, unsure. “Yurio?”

The silver medalist was apparently within earshot. “I’ll come support you but I will not be involved in this spectacle of… inane emotion. What makes you think I have any interest in setting myself up to be your shoulder to cry on, old man?”

Work with Lilia was at least broadening the younger skater’s vocabulary in surprising ways. 

“Katsudon’s my favorite anyway.” 

Viktor began scrambling for another answer to set before the expectant pair before him.

“You should call Giacometti.”

“Chris?” Viktor blinked. It wasn’t that Chris wasn’t a fine friend. “Maybe Mari…”

“Giacometti’s retiring. He’ll have time and patience for all of your nonsense.” Yurio scowled. “Mari? You can’t steal your groom’s sister. That’s too sad even for you. Have some standards!” The younger man turned to stalk away and Viktor breathed in relief. Even three months ago, those parting words would have been paired with a kick. That gold at the Grand Prix had calmed the boy. 

Viktor turned to find Phichit studying him, but as soon as he saw Viktor looking, Phichit grabbed Yuuri and shoved him at his fiancé. “Smile! Say, ‘Future husbands!’ Viktor! Yuuri, marry that man!” At ‘Future Husbands’ Viktor had kissed Yuuri, overwhelmed by his luck. Phichit was still talking, but now Viktor was busy gazing into his future husband’s eyes and had stopped listening.

 

Phichit caught up with him at the banquet. Yuuri was across the room, talking to sponsors with the gangly Yurio.

“So?” Viktor let the silence draw out until Phichit elaborated. “Is it because of you winning all the time? It made you feel awkward?”

Viktor shrugged. “Winning made me feel a lot of things,” at first, “but not awkward, no.”

Phichit was frowning. “Then why wasn’t Chris your automatic answer? Yuuri and I both expected him to be, but I admit, I haven’t seen you together often since we got to know you.”

Viktor shrugged, ducking his head until his hair slipped over his face. This conversation just continued taking him off guard. He offered a charming smile and opened his mouth, but Phichit beat him to it. 

“Not a press conference answer, Viktor, not a soundbite. We both love Yuuri. We’re stuck with each other now.”

“I wasn’t going to give you a soundbite.” Viktor was possibly too surprised at being called out to put much effort into the lie.

Phichit raised an eyebrow and tilted his head forward, pityingly. “I trained with your biggest fan. He might know you much better now, but so do I.”

Viktor blinked, “Wow,” and tapped his index finger on his lips. “I… This isn’t for social media.” He glanced at the younger skater. “Chris is a great friend. Um, objectively. But you’re right in a way, I guess. He never beat me, and I was older. I wanted to be untouchable for him. Like for Yurio.”

“Yurio may have your number better than Yuuri even.”

Viktor laughed. “You’re right, of course. And maybe Chris knew more too. But he never called me out, and so I never shared, and. Well, you saw him at the Cup of China. He never knew how…” Viktor stopped. He had alluded to this with Yuuri, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever said it aloud. “How grey my world was. So he never understood that Yuuri is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Phichit opened his mouth and shaped a few words before actually making any noise. “Look, don’t pick a best man you can’t be friends with. You deserve to have only the people you love standing up there with you. But you should think about it. Yurio was right, Chris might be happy for a distraction.” He put his champagne glass down. “I’m going to dance. Coming?” Viktor was left trying to remember if Yurio had said anything of the sort.

 

Viktor thought that might have been the end of it. He spent the night convincing himself that Yakov wouldn’t mind being his best man if asked, providing Viktor didn’t expect a bachelor party and they scheduled the wedding over the off season. 

Phichit caught Viktor in the hotel lobby the next morning. 

Yuuri had a sponsor brunch, and Viktor considered it a lucky coincidence, until Chris stepped out of the elevator and waved. Viktor waved back and shot Phichit an unimpressed look. Phichit shrugged and didn’t bother looking guilty. “Aren’t you two friendly?” It wasn’t until they were seated that Viktor began to understand just how long a game Yuuri’s best friend was playing, because he left the topic of best men completely alone.

“So, Chris, what are you thinking of doing now that you’re retiring? Any chance I can steal your choreographer? I assume you won’t need him anymore.”

“He’s my husband, actually, so I might need him.” A self-deprecating moue. “I except to be needing him a lot, in fact to distract me from my lack of a job and general uselessness.” 

Viktor would have assumed innuendo, but Phichit seemed to hear something more. “Do you think Viktor, here, was useless last fall?” From the look in his eye, Viktor wondered how safe it would be for Chris to say no. The other man seemed to agree. 

“No, of course not! I’m no coach, though.”

“Well, what are you interested in?”

Viktor was beginning to second-guess his assumptions and wonder why he’d been invited to this job counseling session.

Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not especially good at things, off the ice.”

Viktor was surprised enough to interrupt. “That’s not true at all, Chris! Do you think I ever could have managed Onsen on Ice without your organizational help?” He turned to Phichit. “I woke him up in the middle of the night in Switzerland on at least three separate occasions for that ice show. Three six-year-olds are not the ideal co-conspirators, especially when Yakov’s been dealing with all of that my whole life. Even with Minako’s help, we’d never have made it work without Chris.”

Phichit smiled at Viktor. “Organizational skills, hm? And how many languages do you speak fluently, Chris?”

Chris shrugged. “I’m European.” And when Phichit waited. “Four. And a handful of Russian words, but I try not to use them in front of anyone else who speaks the language.” 

Viktor laughed. “Five. I count my French, and you laugh at my accent every time you hear it.”

Chris smiled in spite of himself. “That’s because your accent is truly atrocious, dear.”

“So you think he should run ice shows, Phichit?”

“I’m saying he has proven excellent organizational skills. That’s marketable.” Phichit set his napkin aside and stood, nodding like they had come to an answer. “Bathroom. Be right back. Don’t get too bored without me.”

He winked at Viktor and disappeared. Chris’s eyes dropped to the napkin he was worrying at in his lap. Viktor was still terrible at comforting people, especially people pretending that they were OK.

Chris pulled a wry smile. “Do you ever feel like you’re being set up for something, but no one bothered to tell you for what?”

Viktor had really wanted Yakov to walk him down the aisle anyway. “Would you be my best man, Chris? It’s not a paying job, but it could at least be entertaining.” 

Chris blinked at him. It was going to be really embarrassing if he had no best man because they’d all turned him down. But after a moment, each word measured out thoughtfully, Chris told him, “Of course. I’d be honored.”

By the time Phichit returned they were on to lighter topics, happily one-upping each other with terrible stories of trips to the vet.

“So there we are, eleven-year-old Yurio, all pretty and doll-like, with this big pillow of a cat and me, all,” he made a ballet hand in front of himself, “effeminate. And we walk in at nearly midnight to this cheap vet clinic full of burly bearded men with pit bulls. You know Yurio, he thinks he and his cat are the biggest baddest kids in the clinic, but I certainly know otherwise.” 

Chris was already laughing.

“And all the sudden I hear this voice behind me going, ‘Aww, kitty,’ and,” Phichit was laughing too now, “then Yurio gets asked for the cat’s name. Do you know his cat’s name?” They both shook their heads. “He goes, “Potya. Puma Tiger Scorpion.” Chris wiped his eyes. “And I turn around from the counter to see the whole waiting room just letting out this enchanted starry-eyed sigh.”

 

Viktor thought that that would surely be the end of it, until he answered a knock on his hotel room door to find Chris standing outside. 

“I can’t believe I’m taking little Yuri’s advice, but.” Chris shrugged. “Do you have a minute?”

 

Which brought Viktor to this point, sitting on his bed completely sober, watching a similarly sober Chris in his chair looking serious. 

“Josef was my best man. Did you know that?”

Viktor nodded, having been informed the night before by his generous husband-to-be. 

Chris ploughed ahead anyway. (Viktor had always appreciated that about Chris.) “None of us has a lot of good friends, except maybe for Phichit.”

Viktor allowed that with a nod.

“I guess. I’m just wondering. Fucks sake, Viktor, I didn’t support your relationship at all when it started.”

Viktor shrugged. “So we’re not allowed to have anyone at the wedding but Phichit and the Katsukis? I was irresponsible.” He still wasn’t sure that was exactly the word for it, and from the look on Chris’s face, he wasn’t convinced either. 

“There has to be something else Viktor. I don’t know it, but someone else must. I was too busy being hurt to see it, but you’ve never been irresponsible lightly, no matter what you play for the media.”

Surprised, Viktor found the truth slipping out before he’d considered. “No. No one else knew. Just me. I was desperate.” He tapped a finger on his lips until he’d fought down unexpected tears. “I told Phichit last night that winning felt like a lot. It did at first, until it felt like nothing at all. The only reason I showed up at the rink most days is because Yakov made it easier to show up then to not and have to explain things to him.”

Chris nodded. “So why not leave right after Sochi? Yuuri asked you to be his coach, danced right past all of your pretenses, you had,” he glanced up at Viktor’s face to check that he had this part right, “no one you were close enough to to tell about your depression. No one who was close enough to notice your depression, aside from Yuuri.”

Viktor nodded. He didn’t think he’d ever called it depression, even in his head, but the label felt comfortable somehow, like it made him fit. “It’s not that I didn’t tell you because I had a better friend hidden away somewhere, Chris. You’re my best friend.”

Chris winced. “You should open up applications for a better one. I’m sorry that I’m the best you’ve got.”

Viktor winced theatrically. “Maybe I prefer friends who don’t notice. Yurio thinks he’s so smart and I just want to hit him all the time. I’ve never felt so violent in my life.”

Chris laughed. “I think the feeling is mutual, if a little less unusual on his part.”

Viktor snorted. He thought that would be it, but Chris seemed determined to turn over a new friend leaf, and repeated his question. 

“Why not leave right after Sochi?”

Viktor lifted a shoulder and breathed. “Where was I going to find him? It took less energy to keep doing what Yakov told me to. And,” he shrugged properly, both shoulders, “I know it looks like I ran off half-cocked, but I was planning to leave after Worlds. I’d done my paperwork and gotten my visa and coaching paperwork as soon as news broke that he was headed back to Japan.” He hadn’t even told Yuuri this bit. “I was planning to beg him, and if he wouldn’t take me then maybe he’d at least look after Makkachin… I was in a bad place, Chris.”

Chris looked like Viktor had slapped him. “Shit. Viktor, I.” He paused. “I’m glad Yuuri took you.” A glance at Viktor to gauge the mood, and a saucy wink. “I’d always wondered which of you was doing the taking.”

 

The next day as Viktor and Yuuri were checking out, Viktor watched Chris walk over to Phichit, phone out, and rumble, “I hear we’re going to be planning a wedding together. Best men selfie?” 

Phichit caught Viktor’s eye in the mirror as they were walking out and gave him a nod.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading guys! And just for the record, while Viktor assumes that Phichit took him out to breakfast to push for Chris as his fellow best man, Phichit just wanted them to try being friends and knew that Chris was feeling down about retiring. 
> 
> Yakov cares about Viktor so much guys, and he tried so hard to keep Viktor safe from himself. This has been your PSA for the morning.
> 
> I would feel guilty about how much Yuri Plisetsky maneuvers everyone else to get along, but honestly, it's practically canon and it's SUCH a trope that even writers I don't think like Yuri P still do it? Yuri Plisetsky clearly pays a lot of attention to everyone around him - which makes sense when he has such trust issues - and notices the hell out of everything. I headcanon that he and Chris totally have a sort-of friendship where they get into cat photo battles on Instagram about whose cat takes the better photo. Once Chris starts treating Yuri like a fellow adult they're going to be great friends, but in the meantime Yuri appreciates that when he tells Chris to knock it off and quit being gross in front of him, Chris will talk about cats with him instead. 
> 
> As for Viktor... I don't particularly like him (sorry guys) but I tried hard to do him justice here. (He's just such a bully to both Yu(u)ri's in early episodes and I really resent that, no matter how much it may have looked called for from where he's sitting...) I feel bad for him. He's clearly lonely as fuck. So I tried giving him some friends who care about him. (Chris takes that conversation really seriously and they become much better friends now that they aren't competing against one another. Chris calls Viktor regularly and makes him promise to call if he's ever feeling low, because he knows that a relationship by itself isn't a cure for depression and he's not really sure how much of Viktor discovering life is actually more of Viktor discovering love.)


End file.
